Cristin Tierney Gallery is pleased to present a performance and series of works by Tim Youd at EXPO Chicago. The fair opens with a preview day on Thursday, April 11th, and continues through Sunday, April 14th.
Youd—a performance and studio artist—is engaged in the retyping of 100 novels over a fifteen-year period for his 100 Novels Project. This extended durational project has taken him across the globe and seen the artist partner with multiple institutions to realize his multi-day, often multi-week, performances. Since 2013 Youd has retyped 80 novels and countless plays, poems, and screenplays. Every day at EXPO Chicago, the artist will set up a typewriter at a folding table and retype Ray Bradbury’s dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451, which imagines an America where books are outlawed and destroyed.
The subject of banned books is on the rise, spurred by the reinvigorated culture wars and the struggle to define America. Like many artists, Youd is alarmed by the growing trend toward censorship, in no small part because his performances revolve around a deep appreciation for literature. His presentations invite visitors to reflect on the stories that the United States has censored in years past (many of which are celebrated and highly influential novels today), to consider who is being served by censoring novels now, and imagine a future where today’s banned books are required reading.
Surrounding Youd at the fair will be other retyped novels that were also banned, such as The Jungle, The Man with the Golden Arm, The Handmaid's Tale, and Slaughterhouse Five, as well as works from his Recognitions and Ribbons and Spools series. These drawings and paintings are also tied to Youd’s 100 Novels Project, as the motif of the black and red typewriter ribbon runs throughout the work. In the drawings, the ribbons take an organic form, ultimately transforming into branches, roots, or tendrils. For his paintings, Youd applies used typewriter ribbons—which he purchases in boxes from typewriter repair shops—and lays them on panel before going over them with oil paint.
Youd has strict parameters for his 100 Novels Project: novels are always retyped on the same make and model typewriter used by the author in a location related to the novel or author. During his performances, the artist types all the words of the novel onto a single page that is backed by a second page and runs repeatedly through the typewriter. The words become illegible, and the accumulated text becomes a rectangle of black ink inside the larger rectangle of the white page. Upon completion, Youd separates the two pages and mounts them side-by-side in diptych form.
For this performance of Fahrenheit 451, Youd will be typing daily at the EXPO Chicago fair from the 11th through the 14th. On final day of the fair, Youd will burn the resulting diptych at the iconic Compass Rose at Navy Pier echoing the burnings that take place in Fahrenheit 451.
Youd’s retyping performances have a strong connection to Chicago. With the support of The Arts Club, he has retyped multiple novels in the city over three consecutive summers. This April performance will take place in three of the area’s foremost cultural centers, serving as a resonant capstone to the artist's time in Chicago.
Tim Youd (b. 1967, Worcester, MA) is a performance and visual artist working in painting, sculpture, and video. To date, he has retyped 80 novels at various locations in the United States and Europe. Residencies at historic writers’ homes have included William Faulkner’s Rowan Oak with the University of Mississippi Art Museum (Oxford, MS), Flannery O’Connor’s Andalusia with SCAD (Milledgeville and Savannah, GA), Virginia Woolf’s Monk’s House (Rodmell, Sussex) and at the National Willa Cather Center in Red Cloud, NE. His work has been the subject of numerous museum exhibitions, including at CAM St. Louis, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, The New Orleans Museum of Art, The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at Vassar College, Hanes Art Gallery at Wake Forest University, and the Lancaster Museum of Art and History. He has presented and performed his 100 Novels Project at the Ackland Art Museum, Weatherspoon Art Museum, Art Omi, Monterey Museum of Art, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE) and LAXART, and retyped Joe Orton’s Collected Plays at The Queen’s Theatre with MOCA London. Youd’s performances have been reviewed by The New York Times, Artforum, Artnet News, Hyperallergic, The Village Voice, The Art Newspaper, Interview, and a variety of other national and international publications. Future performances and exhibitions are planned for Atlanta Contemporary (2024) and the Parrish Art Museum (2025). His studio is based in Los Angeles.
Founded in 2010, Cristin Tierney Gallery is a contemporary art gallery located on The Bowery with a deep commitment to the presentation, development, and support of a roster of both established and emerging artists. Its program emphasizes artists engaged with critical theory and art history, with an emphasis on conceptual, video, and performance art. Education and audience engagement is central to our mission. Cristin Tierney Gallery is a member of the ADAA (Art Dealers Association of America).